It's knowing that your door is always open
And your path is free to walk
That makes me tend to leave my sleepin' bag
Rolled up and stashed behind your couch
And it's knowin' I'm not shacked by forgotten words and bones
And the ink stains that have dried upon some line
That keeps you in the back roads by the rivers of my mem'ry
That keeps you ever gentle on my mind
It's not clingin' to the rocks and I'd be planted
On their columns, now that binds me
Or somethin' that somebody said because
They thought we fit together walkin'
It's just knowin' that the world will not be cursin' or forgivin'
When I walk along some railroad track and find
That you're movin' on the back roads by the rivers of my mem'ry
And for hours you're just gentle on my mind
Though the wheat fields and the clothes lines
And the junk yards and the highways come between us
And some other woman's cryin' to her mother
'Cause she turned and I was gone
I still run in silence tears of joy might stain my face
And summer sun might burn me till I'm blind
But not to where I cannot see you walkin' on the back roads
By the rivers flowing gentle on my mind
I dipped my cup of soap back from
A gurglin' cracklin' caltron in some train yard
My beard a roughen coal pile and a dirty hat
Pulled low across my face
Through cupped hands round a tin can
I pretend I hold you to my breast and find
That you're wavin' from the back roads
By the rivers of my mem'ry
Ever smilin' ever gentle on my mind
That you're wavin' from the back roads
By the rivers of my mem'ry
Ever smilin' ever gentle on my mind

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